of air and plenty of it. We are probably 6° cooler than down in the town below. The house is a fine large mansion rather than a house, of two storeys, with a spacious verandah supported by large Grecian pillars running along the whole back and front of each storey. We are five in the house — Colonel Pakenham, A.G.; Colonel Wetherall, Q.M.G.; Major Clifford ^' his assistant; a staif surgeon, Dr. O 'Flaherty; and myself. We have each a very large bedroom, dressing-room and a bathroom paved with marble. We all mess together, have a capital cook, and live in first-rate style. Our own expenses are at the rate of;^300 a year each, but as my pay and allowances, including my regimental pay, etc., amount to;^i300 a year, you will see that I am altogether not so very badly off. I go down to my office every morning in a large kind of arm-chair with a covering to it, carried on two long bamboos by a couple of Chinese coolies; to walk there and back every day would soon lay me up. This place swarms with Chinese, who are the most hard-working, clever, useful people possible. I do not know what the colony could possibly do without them. I have been, to a great extent, reequipped by them, for I have lost, with the exception of a carpet bag full of things, every article I possessed on board the Transit. I had luckily saved one cotton shirt with a linen front which I gave as a pattern to a Chinese tailor here, and for;^3 los. he makes me a dozen precisely like the pattern, and equally good, for which I paid in London £6 los., although the cotton and linen must have come from Europe or America.... — Ever j'-our affectionate son, Fredk. Stephenson.
To his Brother
Hong Kong, September 10. My dear William, —... We cannot make out what is to become of us out here, and are rather expecting to be recalled. We have just troops enough here to protect the place during the absence of an expedition to Canton, and with the exception of the 1400 marines
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Lord Palmerston talks of sending out, I do not see the slightest prospect of our being reinforced. The marines can perfectly well act under the orders of the Admiral without the necessity of placing them under Greneral Ashburnham, so that under these circumstances there can be no possible necessity for maintaining this expensive staff. We are, however, beginning to look forward to the return of Lord Elgin who will probably enlighten us a little as to our future operations.... I was not sorry to get away from Singapore, much as I enjoyed myself there, for I found myself placed unexpectedly in a more responsible situation than I had bargained for, by the arrival there of different detachments of troops destined for China and amounting to about 900 men. These touched at Singapore, and being there it became a question as to the expediency of diverting them to Calcutta, and, as senior officer of H.M.'s troops there, it was for me to decide this point which, as you may imagine, caused me some little anxiety. Although the Governor was the proper man to send them on, he could not have done so without my sanction. I did not hesitate, of course, for one moment in deciding that they should go to Calcutta, where every European was, at that time, worth his weight in gold. But instead of the Governor making a requisition upon me for the troops, I had to urge upon him the necessity of sending them to India, which threw rather more of the onus upon me than I was entitled to. You can never tell in what light your own acts, simple and justifiable as they may seem to you, will be viewed by people at a distance, and therefore I was naturally a little anxious as to how far the General here would approve of my thus depriving him of a portion of his forces. He did approve, however, of what I had done, though, naturally, frightfully disgusted at the necessity for it, which thus deprives him of all his troops.... This island... abounds in water of a most excellent kind, running in numerous little streams down the sides of the mountains. You would be surprised at Victoria, it is such
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a fine, large thriving town, only sixteen years old.... The island abounds in granite which is most extensively used, and is admirably quarried by the Chinese, who, instead of blasting, insert rows of wooden pegs about an inch square into corresponding holes previously chiseled out. These pegs are then saturated with water till they swell sufficiently to burst asunder the granite; by this means a considerable amount of labour is saved, because you can thus detach a mass of granite of very nearly the form you require.... — Ever your affectionate brother, Fredk. Stephenson.
To Lady Stephenson
Hong Kong, September 25.